The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) has awarded $27.3m for research & development to accelerate the Hanford Site’s tank waste clean-up mission. The funds are for 13 projects led by six national laboratories. Project duration is from two to three years. First-year funding ranges from $1.3m million to $3m per project. The laboratories and their projects are:

Savannah River National Laboratory

  • Integrity monitoring and assessment, prediction, repair, and corrosion control of the Hanford storage tanks;
  • Efficient electrochemical denitration and caustic generation system for direct-feed waste pretreatment to accelerate the Hanford mission and operations;
  • Direct stabilisation of low-activity waste with advanced engineered cellular magmatics; and
  • Technoeconomic Optimisation of Hanford tank waste: a data driven approach to inventory, logistics and disposition.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

  • Enabling high-level waste (HLW) sludge delivery through in-tank processing in the southeast quadrant of the Hanford tank farms;
  • Expanding the HLW glass processing envelope;
  • Developing a Hanford grout modelling framework and property database for performance assessments;
  • Real-time liquid/slurry waste sampling & analysis: with user interface for comprehensive data and uncertainty analysis.

Argonne National Laboratory

  • The surface chemistry of plutonium oxide for waste pretreatment.

Idaho National Laboratory

  • digitally optimized autonomous guided vehicles for Hanford waste tank handling.

Los Alamos National Laboratory

  • Dry retrieval of tank waste;
  • Real-time in-line monitoring for Hanford tank waste treatment.

Sandia National Laboratories

  • improved fundamental understanding of aluminium chemistry and interactions of aluminate anion with co-anions: applications to in-tank and at-tank pretreatment of Hanford tank HLW sludge.

The investment is part of EM’s broader commitment to advancing the tank waste mission at Hanford, according to EM Senior Advisor William “Ike” White. “By leveraging the expertise of our national labs, EM is continuously looking at opportunities to get waste safely out of tanks, treated and disposed of sooner, driving down risks to workers, the public and the environment,” he said.

Based on a solicitation issued in June, projects were selected that are aimed at developing breakthrough technologies to drastically reduce the life-cycle cost and schedule of the Hanford tank waste cleanup mission. “Investments like this complement ongoing progress at Hanford where we have treated over 800,000 gallons of tank waste and are preparing to immobilise it via the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste system,” said Hanford Site Manager Brian Vance. “With a challenging, decades-long mission ahead, it’s important to have the most advanced technologies and approaches to help inform our work to accelerate the tank waste mission.”

The investment in the selected projects is based on priorities recommended in the Hanford Tank Waste R&D Roadmap developed by the Network of National Laboratories for Environmental Management & Stewardship. EM incorporated input from the EM Advisory Board in the implementation of the roadmap.

The selected focus and priority areas are also consistent with recommendations by the US Government Accountability Office, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine, and other stakeholders.

Image: Aerial view of a storage pad near the Tank-Side Cesium Removal System at the Hanford Site (courtesy of Office of Environmental Management, USDOE)